


Indulgences

by Ammeh



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: 7KPP Week, F/M, Musical Instruments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ammeh/pseuds/Ammeh
Summary: Valrise + music, at three different times in her life.Written for 7KPP Week 2019 - Day 2, Hobbies





	Indulgences

**Author's Note:**

> Names and ages of Valrise's siblings, who I finally had to pin down to write this: Ophelia (10 at start of fic), Emmaline (8), Linette (7), Larissa (7), Rhiele (5), Tremont (4, first son), Cerise (2), Brandel (1, second son). Valrise is 6 years older than Ophelia and was definitely an accident baby.
> 
> I Can’t Music, and attempting to research for this fic just got me lots of ads for children’s music lessons, so if I said anything that makes her sound like an idiot or is unrealistic, just let me know. (I do know that the piano was invented later than the time period I normally associate with 7KPP's tech, and the thing in the music room might actually be supposed to be a harpsichord, but harpsichords sound more...aggressive than I was going for, and the word is too close to harp, so it's a piano.)
> 
> Minor content warning for the middle section (Valrise avoiding intimacy with her first husband). If you’re concerned, see the end notes for details.

The piano was one of the few trappings of nobility they had left.

She suspected it was only still there because her mother hadn’t figured out how to get it down the stairs to sell. Or maybe she’d decided it compensated for the threadbare rugs and shelves conspicuously absent of curios. It made them look, perhaps, like they might hold social gatherings, have their talented daughters perform for their guests.

In reality, it was years out of tune, and of the seven daughters, 16-year-old Valrise was the only one with any idea how to play. There hadn’t been money for individual music tutoring since Ophelia was just starting on basic scales—a couple years of group vocal lessons, and then it was up to Valrise (“You have such a lovely voice, dear, I’m sure you can do better than that overpriced troubadour!”) By that point, the piano twanged unpleasantly, a bulky corner decoration rather than an instrument.

There were probably smarter things to spend her scrimped-together savings on, but…she missed it.

Getting the piano tuned  _did_ have a practical justification, she’d convinced herself—with Rhiele turning six, it’d make five of them passing the lap harp around during her attempts at music lessons. Counting Valrise, that would be six of them sharing it for practice. If they had the piano as well, there’d be more opportunity for everyone to practice instruments, more options for accompaniment, better chances for her sisters to grow the skills expected of noble ladies.

So she’d sold a brooch that had been a gift from an optimistic merchant’s son, and inquired around until she found a tuner with a good reputation who was willing to work cheaply. At least in this case. (She  _might_  have had to bat her eyelashes a bit and sigh wistfully about how much she missed playing, but in the end she’d gotten three piano tunings for the price of the brooch.)

Hopefully, her mother wouldn’t return from her outing until after the tuner was finished. She might not notice that the piano was suddenly in tune, but she’d have  _opinions_  on Valrise’s use of money, or perhaps take this as a sign they had some great trove of savings secreted away and she could afford some indulgences of her own.

Right on cue, the tuner closed his box of tools and stepped back with a smile. “It should be set, Miss—my lady. Feel free to try it out.”

She sat down hesitantly, hovered her hands over the keyboard. “I’m afraid I’m several years out of practice, so I’d request that you don’t judge my fumbles too harshly,” she smiled over her shoulder.

The first few notes were hesitant, but her hands remembered even if her mind didn’t, and soon her fingers were flowing over the keys, a song she couldn’t even recall the name of filling the room.

She hadn’t remembered how satisfying she found this—the range of notes, the expanse of the keyboard, the timbre.

The last note faded out and she came back to herself. “It—sounds lovely. Thank you.”

Movement at the door caught her eye, and she looked over to see Ophelia, Emmaline, and Larissa all peeking their heads into the room.

“I  _told_  you she’d be good at it,” Larissa whispered loudly to someone in the hall. Probably Rhiele—she still liked to hide from strangers, and Linette in her determination to be the “good twin” would never have abandoned her math exercises to spy on what was happening across the castle.

“Are you going to teach any of us?” Emmaline asked eagerly, noticing Valrise looking their way. “So we don’t have to share?”

“Of course,” she said, glad they seemed excited. This would be good for them. She knew it was the right choice.

The footman came over to show the tuner out, and the girls entered the room, Emmaline and Larissa rushing up to the piano and plinking at the keys while Ophelia came over to stand by Valrise.

“It’s good to see you play again,” she said quietly. “I missed it.”

“Me too.”

-–

The floor harp was by far her favorite thing in the house. Her entertainment and her sanctuary.

The same talents that had helped her to catch a wealthy baron’s eye now also helped her play the part of an adoring wife without having to do anything terribly…wifely. He loved her singing, had had the harp and piano moved to the room below his study and bade her to play with the windows open.

She didn’t mind the man, but she felt no great passion, no tender affection at the thought of him. The thought of kissing him, of lying with him, left her with a sense of cool distaste. She endured the first, but for the other…

The dream-wine had been a terrible plan. It was miraculous it hadn’t crashed apart around her already.

She’d been so childishly terrified of that first night. She’d known the tincture was a soporific, one unpopular due to side effects of disturbingly vivid dreams, but quick-acting and accessible.  She’d just meant to delay things, let him think he’d nodded off after a night of feasting and put the whole affair off until she’d had time to settle in a bit.

But he’d pulled her close, gotten her bodice open before it took effect…and the next morning she’d discovered that if an idea were planted and the circumstances were believable, those “vivid dreams” could be mistaken for reality.

She should have taken that reprieve as the windfall it was and not pushed her luck. But it turned out that if you manage to avoid the first night, the next time…was still the first night.

And “settling in” turned out to be much less of a panacea than she’d hoped.

She could perform the part of the adoring and grateful wife when they were together, but too much and it got under her skin, made her sick with it, made her worry she might let the mask slip.

Playing, though—playing let her escape from pleasing her husband and please her husband all at the same time.

He thought the music was for him. It wasn’t.

And when her husband came in and kissed her shoulder, told her to wait up in her chambers that night, she’d only be acting the doting spouse if she prepared two goblets and some cut flowers, wanted to flirt a bit over a glass of wine before they got to business.

The problem was that it worked too well. She never meant to keep it going for an entire year.

She’d faked her way through one pregnancy already, “late courses” and “morning sickness” and a morning of dramatic weeping in the bathroom. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could maintain the ruse. Soon she might need to—

A loud crash came from the study upstairs, and her fingers halted on the strings with an unpleasant twang.

“Darling? Is everything all right?”

–-

“I  _believe_ ,” Zarad says, “that you promised me a private concert.”

Valrise tilts her head in exaggerated recollection. “Oh? I’m fairly certain I said that I  _might_  give you a private concert,  _if you behave_.”

He grins. “Exactly! So as we are surely in agreement that my behavior has been beyond reproach for at  _least_  the past three hours—”

She gives him a flat look.

“—and you carelessly neglected to specify a duration when making your promise—”

“It was hardly a  _promise—_ ”

“—there is really no debating the fact that you owe me a private concert.”

“I suppose that’s fairly ironclad,” she says, walking over to the floor harp in the center of the music room he’s brought her to. She settles herself, takes a deep breath.

She plucks out a single chord, then stands. “Well, since I carelessly neglected to specify a duration in my promise… I hope you enjoyed your concert.”

Zarad laughs, eyes dancing. “Ah, but you must agree that the word ‘concert’ carries an implicit minimum length. At least a quarter hour, certainly.”

Part of her wants to keep arguing, silly hesitations holding her back. Her time with the Baron has turned the idea of playing for her husband into something underhanded, scheming—and as someone used to impressing people with her singing, she’s a bit worried she’ll come off lacking in comparison to the apparently legendary voice of his mother.

But he’s hardly the Baron, and she has no intention of giving up singing permanently, so better to take the plunge now than put it off. And in the end, she really does want to.

She pretends to consider for a long moment, then sits back down. “Fine. But if you get yourself murdered by a bookshelf while I’m playing, I’m going to be very cross.”

“I’ll be the very soul of caution,” he says. “Although, if there exists a bookshelf so determined to murder me that it manages to sneak its way into the music room, I fear I may have met my match.”

She laughs, bringing her fingers to the strings.

She plays.

And maybe it’s a little bit for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I always assumed that the dream-wine mentioned in CC as imaginative ethical widow's baby-avoidance method worked as described, but I've realized that maybe the name was just supposed to imply a sleep agent. Either way, this is my head-canon for how it works!
> 
> \--
> 
> If you came down here for the detailed content warning: 
> 
> During the second section, Valrise (Ambitious Widow) is married to her first husband, who wants an heir. She doesn’t want to sleep with him and has successfully avoided it by drugging him so he’ll fall asleep and think they did, but is worried she might have to eventually (and has been in some intimate situations with him she found distasteful, not much past kissing.) She also faked a pregnancy and miscarriage at one point. It’s all described pretty vaguely and she’s safe at the end. If you’d prefer to skip that but are still interested in reading the rest: You can read up to the end of the scene with her sisters, then instead of reading the section that starts “the floor harp was by far her favorite thing in the house”, search for the first instance of “Zarad” and pick up again there. All you need to know for the third bit is that she used to play “for” her first husband as a means of avoiding him, and that he died in a freak accident while she was playing in the room below.


End file.
